I HAVE PASSED IT SO many times whilst travelling by bus along London’s Oxford Street, and wondered what it is. I am referring to a well-maintained brickwork tower-like structure surmounted by a recumbent stone lion. It is a few yards east of Selfridges department store. Eighteenth century in appearance, it looks incongruous standing flush against an undistinguished modern brick building. The object of interest stands on the eastern corner of the intersection of Oxford Street and a short cul-de-sac, Stratford Place, about which I will write more in the future.

Stratford Place runs in a north/south direction. Its eastern side is lined with a row of Georgian terraced houses. Prior to the twentieth century and the development of Oxford Street as a shopping district, the row of Georgian houses would have extended south with the southernmost of them having a façade on Oxford Street. In 1890, the Georgian villa that stood on the eastern corner of Oxford Street and Stratford Place was demolished. All that remained was the lion-topped gate house (or porter’s lodge), which I have seen so often whilst travelling past on the bus. The west side of Stratford Place was demolished to build a huge Lyons Corner House eatery. The demolition included the loss of the western gatehouse that used to face the still standing one, which has been preserved.